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Cyborg: Gestalt
Cyborgs; we see them every day and think nothing of it. The man learning to walk again with the help of a prosthetic leg; the woman on her cell phone yelling at a colleague in another country via a Bluetooth device; the grandfather adjusting his hearing aid to phase out the background noise of the diner; the elderly speed-walker whose heart is regulated by a medical pacemaker; the child hearing for the first time thanks to his cochlear implant. Society has developed a casual acceptance regarding the integration of man and machine. But what happens when cybernetics begin to blur the line between miracle-cure and abomination? What happens when a prosthetic limb ceases to be reparations for an individual’s lost humanity and becomes the foundation of a half-living monster? This is the purpose of Cyborg: Gestalt. Cyborgs, or “cybernetic organisms”, are more than the collection of fantasy-based super heroes and villains. They are an integral part of today’s society, future’s foothold in the present. There is no denying the presence of these blended realities. Rationally, there is only acceptance and oneness with the cybernetic influence on society. Rationally, there is only Gestalt, but the world is not rational. A Zeroth Society The setting for Cyborg draws heavily from the cyberpunk literature, the primary elements of which are the conflicts between hackers, artificial intelligence and “mega” corporations. It is through these mediums that the world is revealed and the entropy of a stagnant society is brought screaming into the light. The world of Cyborg: Gestalt is our own world seen through the infantile eyes of a newly birthed Artificial Intelligence. Hackers play the role of the modern messiah. Hated, feared, venerated hackers release information back into a society that is more afraid of the truth than those who sought to keep it locked away. Desperate for society to cease to be complacent with the wool placed firmly over their eyes, hackers fight a never ending battle against human nature itself. Artificial intelligence presents its own pitfalls within the Cyborg setting. The capacity for rational thought without the capacity for social thought has immersed society in a cold, logical environment that saps human will and emotion regarding such ‘anomalies’ as obsolete or detrimental. As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated actual intelligence becomes obsolete. In mans’ hubris he believes that he is humanizing the machine, but in fact it is the machine that is redefining what it means to be human. Perhaps the simplest and, at the same time, most complex part of the Cyborg setting are the MegaCorps. Megacorporations are more than multi-national corporations with monopolistic control of various resources and services. They are political powers unto themselves. With standing armies, which they refer to as ‘Security Forces’, many Megacorporations are capable of declaring war, operating as a sovereign power and coining their own internal monetary systems. Megacorporations are not a new phenomenon. The earliest Megacorporations reach back to the Hanseatic League which held power between 1358 and 1862 and the Dutch East India Company founded in 1602 and thrived until corruption tore it apart in 1800. Modern examples include the young European Union, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft and Nestlé. The world of the Cyborg setting is not merely a fantasy possibility for our world, it is an inevitability. Cyborg Characters The Nanon, the cyborgs of Cyborg: Gestalt, differ from other cyborgs in a number of ways, the most significant of which is their unique cyber-metabolic makeup that gives them their name. While all internal cyborgs, that is, cyborgs whose cybernetic properties exist at least partially under their skin, utilize nanotechnology to manage the complex, sometimes hostile, relationship between man and implants, Nanon have taken this a step further. Normally nanobiotics, nanorobots designed to repair tissue damage, regulate bacteria and destroy infections on and around areas where cybernetics come in contact with organic material, have to be introduced regularly into cyborg’s system intravenously or through ingestion. A Nanon’s metabolism has the capacity to reproduce them naturally. More importantly, the nanotechnology that reproduces within the Nanon host has the capacity to repair trauma unrelated to cybernetic implants, able to go so far as to regrow limbs or replace organs with bionic replacements. *Vocabulary *Merits **Nanon Merits **Cyborg Merits ***Implant Merits ***Enhancement Merits ***Augmentation Merits ***Exoskeleton Merits *Zhizn' **Soldiers **Hackers **Icons **Adonis **Mnemonicans *Narots **The Arm **Aegis **Immortals **The Shadowmen **Enigma *Applications **Analog **Clocking **Koinonia **Meromity **NVision **Protocol **Radioflash **Stochastia **Wiki **Zip *Narot Applications **Anaerometabolism ***Philosophy of Integration ***Philosophy of Mitigation ***Philosophy of Regulation **Interface **Menander *Exploits *Adaptations Category:System Category:Character Creation Category:Under Construction Category:House Rules Category:The Chronicle Category:Cyborg